Dear St. Paul Community, March 3, 2022
We are committed to the health and safety of everyone in our school community and beyond. On March 14th mask wearing will become optional in our district schools. It is important for all of us to remain vigilant since the virus is still in our community. The district will continue to monitor student health following the guidelines in the RSSL document. In addition, we will track case numbers in our immediate geographic area so that we can continue to make good decisions regarding health and safety for everyone. I would like to thank the St Paul school board for their hard work over recent months and the community for their continued support as we work through this positive and substantial change in operations for our schools.
The OHA announced that it would lift the statewide indoor face covering rule (OAR 333-019-1025) as well as the statewide K12 indoor face covering rule (333-019-1015) on March 11, 2022, at 11:59 PM. The CDC, OHA, and ODE continue to strongly advise the universal use of face coverings in schools in order to reduce the spread of COVID-19 and minimize the lost time learning in school due to illness when county COVID-19 Community Levels are high. Though cases in Marion County remain high, the immediate area around St Paul has seen few new cases and we have had no new cases that we know of in our student population for two weeks. At all grade levels in our schools, individuals may choose to mask based on their individual risk assessment (e.g., increased risk for severe disease or family or community members at increased risk for severe disease). We will make every effort to normalize and welcome students to our schools regardless of their families individual choices around mask wearing .
If your child becomes ill: Students should be kept home. We can continue to offer testing in our schools and positive covid cases will still need to be isolated for 5 days before returning to school on day 6 if they have been fever free for 24 hours without fever reducing medication and their symptoms have mostly resolved. You can find additional information on how best to address a positive case in your family by following this link. Did you test positive for COVID-19?
Thank you
Sincerely,
Joseph M. Wehrli
St. Paul School District
Superintendent/Elementary Principal